


Five Little Jolts and The Sun Comes Out

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23957590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: Five times River surprised Mal and the one time he managed to get her back.
Relationships: Malcolm Reynolds & River Tam
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33
Collections: Wayback Exchange 2020





	Five Little Jolts and The Sun Comes Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rokosourobouros](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rokosourobouros/gifts).



> I know exactly zilch in the way of the Chinese language. All the Chinese phrases in this came from [The Firefly Wiki](https://firefly.fandom.com/wiki/Dictionary).

~*~ family ~*~ 

River was waiting on his bed when Mal dropped down into his bunk the night after the little kidnapping incident on Jianying. Most of the crew had long since gone to sleep. He and Wash had been up late to settle on a course for getting Badger his share of the money from their cattle smuggling. The young woman sat so still that at first he didn’t even notice her. He’d already shrugged out of his suspenders by the time he turned and spotted her sitting cross legged on top of his covers. He jumped, yanking the suspenders up like they were a blanket he was naked beneath. If he weren’t sure she already knew far worse than he could teach her he might even have been a little regretful of the stream of pithy swears that left his mouth before he could calm his frantic heartbeat.

“Listen, little witch, there ain’t nothin’ right about you letting yourself into a man’s bunk in the middle of the night.” Mal righted his suspenders and crossed his arms, situating himself against another wall of his room—as far away from the teenage girl making herself at home in his bunk as he could get. “Why are you?” he asked with a frown. “Here, that is?”

“Establishment of familial roles is essential to the bonding process.” At his blank stare her eyebrows knit together. Mal thought he might actually be able to see the gears in her mind turning as she tried to find the words to say whatever was going through it. “The girl told Simon daddy would come to take us home.” She nodded at him. “Kept her honest.”

He ran that through his ever-growing ‘River-to-English’ filter and felt a little bubble of warmth spread out from his heart. Father figure. Now wasn’t that something.

~*~ fear ~*~

Sometimes being doped was like wading through a great big pit of pudding. His body felt all kinds of floaty. Every now and again there were voices drifting around—the man who sold him the ship, the soldiers under his command, all the folks who’d helped make his home. And then a voice would cut through the pudding, and he’d drag himself out of the muck to get a sense of what was going on.

“Scared.”

The climb back to awareness was rough, but Mal managed it well enough. The ceiling of Serenity’s infirmary came into view, sterile and familiar. It was confusing for a moment before the memories flooded into his mind. The blown catalyzer. Sending the crew away. Betrayal at the hands of the scrappers. He processed recent events in the space between one breath and the next. On the third inhale his vision zeroed in on the slender hand clasping his.

“She wasn’t sure he’d come back from the dark.” He followed the hand up a bare arm until River’s face came into focus. “Almost lost forever.”

He’d figured if anybody was going to be sitting a bedside vigil it’d be… well, anyone else. “I ain’t lost,” he grumbled. He told his body to give her hand a reassuring squeeze, and kept telling it until the command was obeyed. “I’m right where I’ve always been.” 

“Knows that now.” Something made a scraping sound— a chair, maybe, being scooted closer to where he lay. “Knowing can’t go to yesterday and stop being afraid.”

Mal snorted. Keeping his eyes open was getting harder. He let himself relax down into the exhaustion and meds. Hoped he’d remember this little bit of company when he came to. “Think I’m starting to understand you a little bit.”

~*~ awaken ~*~

Mal was used to insomnia. It was a persistent kind of thing, a regular visitor whenever he couldn’t keep his thoughts calm. Over the years he’d developed habits for when sleep just wouldn’t come. Well, one habit, really. When the rest of the ship was asleep and he just couldn’t find his way to join them he walked his way through Serenity, checking every corridor and cubbyhole for dangers he knew full well couldn’t have found them so far out in the black. And when he was sure there weren’t any boogeymen hiding in the dark he’d settle in the same corner of the galley and let the thoughts run their course. Sometimes he’d nod off there. Other times he’d still be wide awake by the time the ship returned to life.

“Can’t sleep?”

And sometimes the ship’s own little wraith would creep up so quiet-like he’d nearly jump out of his skin.

“You keep doing that and I’m gonna start insisting on you wearin’ a bell ‘round your neck,” he growled when he could bring himself to stop swearing.

“It wouldn’t matter,” River assured him. She turned in a circle, looking around the galley like she was trying to memorize its every detail. “I could keep a bell from ringing when I move if I wanted.”

“Is that so?” Mal groaned his way to his feet. “Shouldn’t you be in bed yourself?”

“You’re not the only one allowed to have late night wanderings, Captain.”

“Pretty sure I’m the one who gets to decide who’s allowed to what on my—” It hit him like a brick to the head. The clearness in her eyes. The first person slant to her words. Lucid. “ _ How shi sung chung, _ ” he breathed. “Did your brother get it all figured out?”

There was a sadness in her answering smile, the kind of rueful thing he’d seen on the face of a dozen soldiers who knew they weren’t going to make it out of the battle. “It won’t last,” she admitted after a long moment. “The compounds have side effects, and when Simon finds them he’ll try a different mix.”

“Might be he’ll think the side effects are worth it.” He made to reach for her, to place a comforting hand on her shoulder, but stalled at her expression.

River shook her head. “Can’t sleep. Food won’t stay down. Not worth it.” She grew quieter, clutching her upper arms. “And I don’t want it.” She didn’t wait for him to respond before she continued. “I can’t be what I used to be. All this fog covering what they did to me… it’s easy, but I wouldn’t be me anymore. Not the me I really am. Broken.” 

He didn’t bother to question why what she said made perfect sense this time. “You ain’t broken, little witch,” he told her. “Different and broken ain’t the same thing.” The next smile she gave him left a bit less sadness in her eyes.

~*~ prank ~*~

He probably shouldn’t have been shocked when he woke up after a solid fourteen hours of sleep to find her in his bunk. Boundaries weren’t exactly something River was good at. At least, though, she’d had the good grace not to be making herself at home on his bed this time around. Instead she was sitting on a cushion in the middle of his floor—back straight, breathing even, and eyes closed. He studied her for a moment, wondering if she’d fallen asleep, before she cracked one eye open and gave him a once over. He opened his mouth to ask what had brought her into his space this time, but she beat him to the punch before he took a breath to speak.

“Shifts,” she insisted as she pushed up to her feet and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress. “In case you die in your sleep.” She didn’t say another word, just wandered over to the ladder and left.

Much later, after having been plagued the whole day with whether or not Niska’s machines might have done some kind of lasting damage, Mal decided to pick the doctor’s brain. Simon looked completely baffled when he asked about lasting effects. He insisted that the state of his ear was the only thing of concern and told him in a rather prissy tone that it would be just fine as long as he wasn’t putting it under extra stress. River cackled so loud it scared Jayne.

~*~ solace ~*~

The surprising part wasn’t so much that River easily took to flying. Crazy girl could do the math to shoot like a machine on the fly, so operating a boat wasn't exactly outside of her wheelhouse. Mal couldn’t really imagine a better option for a pilot without Wash. It would be too hard to bring in a new crew member—especially given the general nature of their lives—and she had better smarts and reflexes than any of them.

What was surprising was how desperately she seemed to need it. When she wasn’t in the cockpit she was listless, lost in a way she hadn’t been since she first came out of the cryo box. She twitched with every movement, every rattling creak in Serenity’s metal shell. The only time she stilled was when she was settled on the bridge in the company of the stars and the blinking lights of the consoles.

“Ghosts,” she whispered, curled up in a ball in the copilot’s seat. It wasn’t the first time he thought she looked small, but the thought was more insistent in that moment. She was shaking, arms clutched so tight around her knees he could see her skin turning white. “I made them ghosts.”

“You did what you had to do, little albatross,” he told her, pouring every bit of reassurance he had into those words. “Them reavers weren’t ever gonna be human again.” The venomous look she gave him was one she usually reserved for Simon after he’d said something stupid and thoughtless. 

“Reavers are irrelevant.” 

Faces, familiar and painfully absent from the realm of the living, flashed in his mind’s eye. Mal wondered (not for the first time) whether she might be capable of projecting her own thoughts instead of just reading the thoughts of others. 

“Now, you listen to me,” he began, switching on the autopilot controls so he could move to stand beside her chair. “Their deaths ain’t on you. Don’t matter that them as killed ‘em were lookin’ for ya.” He dropped into a crouch, one hand falling to her shoulder. “You don’t go blaming yourself for their bad deeds.  _ Dohn-ma? _ ”

It took a long moment for her to nod in agreement. Mal stayed right where he was, watching the way her eyes slid out of focus. Whatever movie was playing inside that genius brainpan of hers he was pretty sure it wasn’t wholesome, feel-good content. He squeezed the hand on her shoulder, shaking it just enough to turn her attention back to him. When he had her focus he eased his grip.

“Listen to me. I think we can both agree I might know a bit about regretting deaths, right?” She nodded, brown eyes clear. “So you ever get to feelin’ overwhelmed by all them thoughts you don’t hesitate to come and talk to me about ‘em.”

It didn’t take long for her to smile ever so slightly. “Thank you, Captain.”

~*~ trust ~*~

“Time to land.”

“That so?” At the head of the dining table, Mal took a sip of his coffee and favored River with a bland stare. “Then what’re you doin’ in here, albatross?”

She frowned ever so briefly before she seemed to catch the flavor of his thoughts. A bevy of emotions flitted across her face, running the gauntlet from shock to disbelief to cautious elation. She bounced on her toes, hands clasped so tight in front of her that he started to worry she might break one of the delicate bones. It might have been just a little bit mean, but he still took another slow sip from the coffee mug before saying the words out loud.

“Having a hard time understanding why my pilot is standin’ in the galley tellin’ me what part of her job needs to be done instead of up and doin’ it.”

The cautious elation morphed into a wide, beaming smile. There may have been a girlish squeal as she disappeared back down the hall, bare feet perfectly silent on the metal grating. It was less than a minute before she reappeared. River bounced around the table and threw her arms around his shoulders.

“Thank you,” she breathed against the side of his face.

She was gone again as quickly as she’d reappeared. Delighted giggles floated down from the bridge as Serenity made its smoothest landing since everything at Miranda. Coffee in hand, Mal propped his boots on one of the chairs and smiled.


End file.
